


Smoke and Errors

by Mynameisdoubleg



Category: BattleTech: MechWarrior, Classic Battletech (Tabletop RPG)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29877780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mynameisdoubleg/pseuds/Mynameisdoubleg
Summary: 3038: As war looms between the Draconis Combine and the newly-minted Federated Commonwealth, a group of dispossessed MechWarriors gather on a Periphery world to execute a massive heist. The specter of war stirs old loyalties though, and any one of them might be an agent for one of the Great Houses. Can they survive the job, and each other?





	Smoke and Errors

**_Char Basin_ **

**_Alegro_ **

**_Outworlds Alliance_ **

**_31 October 3038_ **

The 12 dispossessed MechWarriors met in a run-down hangar near the spaceport. It was a Spartan rectangle of concrete with a wide, rusty roll-up shutter at one end that had been opened all the way. The asphalt outside shimmered with heat, but inside it was cool. There was a baggage carrier train parked on one side. The type pulled by little tractors that made the drivers look like they were playing with toys.

On the other side was a line of grey metal tables and a handful of folding chairs. One table hosted a tall coffee pot and four uneven stacks of white Styrofoam cups. Made from the ersatz beans they grew at Alegro’s poles, the coffee didn’t smell of anything much, except maybe hot plastic.

Etienne was the first to arrive, a wiry man from Robinson with an easy smile. He looked around. Saw nobody. Dumped his duffel bag on the first baggage cart. The bag was olive green worn to grey at the corners. His name had been stenciled on it once, but now all but the first two letters, “ET,” had been reduced to an illegible smear.

He poured a cup of coffee, pulled up a chair and waited, feet on one of the tables.

Two mercenaries from the Outworlds Alliance arrived next. Lucius Black was white and Ray White was black, and when they introduced themselves Etienne doubled over laughing. He dubbed them the zebra twins and they called him ET. They were joined by a short, brown-haired Lyran from Skye named Phoebe Dunn. When she explained her last name meant ‘brown,’ the zebra twins hugged her like a long-lost sister.

The rest came in ones and twos. Harun, a bearded Azami, brought a traveler guitar shaped like a shiny red plastic oar. Aaron was a curly-haired kid almost definitely younger than the 24 he claimed to be. There were two other women, Maja Jensen from Rasalhauge and Usha from the League. Aaron immediately offered his seat to Maja.

“ET,” Etienne would introduce himself each time, then point to the zebra twins and Dunn. “White, Black and brown. Any questions?” And start laughing again.

Harun switched on the guitar, played a song, something light, like sunshine on a spring day. He started to sing. Something about a young man leaving home for the first time. A curly-haired man, chasing a girl from Rasalhauge.

Aaron blushed and Maja mimed throwing a cup of coffee at Harun.

Aaron insisted he’d been on plenty of planets, and dug a souvenir out of his bag as evidence. It was an anti-tank grenade, artifact of some minor Periphery squabble, a massive wad of TNT with a long wooden handle. It looked like an oversized cabasa, those wood and metal percussion instruments that made a sound like a rattlesnake.

Etienne just shook his head. “Be lucky you don’t blow yourself up with that, kid.”

The two Capellans had met on the road to the hangar, and were deep in argument when they arrived.

“One on one, a mercenary will beat a house regular every time,” the first was saying, a short man with ‘GUANGLI’ stenciled on his breast pocket. “It’s a matter of skill and experience.”

“One on one? We talking about a war or a Solaris Sunday night special?” said the other, built like a boxer. His shirt said nothing and his bag only had his terse initials, ‘K.D.’ He nodded to the others. “Folks.”

“Grayson Carlyle, Natasha Kerensky, Morgan Kell, those sound like Solaris jocks to you? Name a better house regular MechWarrior.”

“Yorinaga Kurita,” suggested Maja.

“Yori-who?” scoffed Guangli. “Man lost one fight and spent the next decade sulking about it in a nunnery. Achieved nothing. Zip, zilch, zero. Yorinaga? Yori- _nada_.”

“Justin Xiang,” offered Etienne.

“Solaris jock, disqualified,” Guangli held his arms crossed in front of him in the shape of an X. “Look, you guys can rattle off any name you like, but when someone asks you to picture the greatest MechWarrior ever, you picture Natasha Kerensky. There’s a reason armies with thousands of BattleMechs are still hiring mercenaries: because they’re better.”

“Not denying there aren’t some talented mercs out there.” K.D. collected a cup of coffee and slouched comfortably into one of the chairs. “But at the end of the day, we live or die as a team. You’ve got to be able to count on the guy in the next ’Mech. A merc is always going to have to wonder if he can.” 

“Shush guys, I’m busy picturing Natasha,” Etienne made a show of rolling his eyes back.

“Need some privacy?” laughed Usha.

Harun switched to something slow and slinky. Strip club music.

Last to arrive were two Kuritans, with shirt sleeves rolled up to show arm-length tattoos. _Yakuza_.

The bigger of the two walked up to where K.D. was sitting. “That’s my chair,” he said.

Harun stopped playing.

K.D. cocked his head to one side, gave the burly Kuritan a long, measured look. It meant, ‘You really want to do this?’ The Kuritan folded his arms. “I said, that’s my chair,” he repeated.

K.D. got up, unhurried. Pretended to dust the seat off. Turned away from the Kuritan. Smiled and winked at Maja. Pivoted back and kicked the Kuritan. In the head. Kicked him again once he was down. Gave the other Kuritan a look. This time, it meant ‘Do we still have a problem?’

The Kuritan studied his boots, didn’t meet the gaze. It meant ‘No.’

“The hell is going on here?” asked a new voice.

A man strolled into the hangar, wearing a white suit, fanning himself with a Panama hat. A deeply lined face and short wavy hair gone grey. Behind him came half a dozen men and women in sunglasses, black T’s and desert camo pants, the type you found in second-hand military stores but never saw soldiers wearing. One of them palmed the door controls and the shutter started rattling down

The suit took in the fallen Kuritan, just starting to moan from the floor, and the kind of negative space that surrounded K.D. “Gents, I have gathered you here today for a purpose, a very specific purpose, and this sure as hell ain’t it,” he waved the hat at two of his men, then at the Kuritan. “Get him up.” The hat resumed its metronome motion as the Kuritan was carried to the baggage train and laid down on one of the baggage carts.

“I have spent considerable time and effort bringing you all here,” he looked pointedly at K.D. “And not a little cash. Care to guess why?”

“In that suit? We’re going on safari, aren’t we boss?” laughed Etienne.

The suit laughed, short and false. “Call me Sol. Sol Erebus. You’re in luck, Etienne Dubois. We are indeed going to see some rare animals, in fact, the rarest beasts of all. That most beautiful of creatures. BattleMechs. And I happen to know just where we can find a whole nest of ‘em.

“A month ago, Interstellar Expeditions found a den of these beauties, right here on Alegro,” Sol began pacing up and down in front of them. “Word is, there might be 12 of them in that den. It’s the find of the decade, biggest thing since Helm. Twelve of ‘em, 12 of you. Get where this is going?”

Sol halted his pacing, stood facing them squarely. “Now, IE is keeping it all hush-hush, because they want to sell these beauties to the highest bidder and don’t want the OA, Combine, Suns, pirates or anyone else showing up before they dig those beauties out. Gents. Ladies. They have almost finished digging these beauties out. And we are going to show up, and we are going to take those beauties, steal them right out from under their noses, and we are going to waltz them off this miserable dust ball of a planet.”

“How? Fly?” asked Usha.

“I got a DropShip in system, waiting for the signal,” Sol pointed skywards, one finger tracing a circle like a helicopter blade. “That big fat egg lands—” the finger dipped down, then shot towards the ceiling, “—we waltz on, blast off.”

Usha looked unimpressed. “We keep the ’Mechs?”

“I’ll give you a choice,” Sol held his hands out, as though weighing the options with a balance. The hand with the hat went down, the other up. “Stay and work for me, and you can keep the ‘Mech.” Hat up, other hand down. “You want out, I keep the ‘Mech, you get 2 million C’s for your trouble. Bank of your choice, small notes, whatever.”

“Security?” asked Guangli. “Guards? Mercs?”

“You let me worry about security. All you need to do is walk in, fire those beauties up, walk them out. Easiest money you’ve ever made.” Sol jammed his hat on his head and rubbed his hands together. “Well gents, do we have a deal?”

**_Somewhere in the Char Basin_ **

**_1 November 3038_ **

Two boxy, big-wheeled Mamba-C33 armored cars bounced and lurched across the baking oven of the desert, dotted with stone fields and salt flats cracked like old leather. Each stone the cars went over sent a judder through the chassis.

Sol rode shotgun in the first, one of his men drove and another manned a roof-mounted machinegun. Three more black-shirts were in the front of the second car. The 12 MechWarriors were piled into the backs of the cars. Small portholes in the sides of the cars let a little light filter in. It was swelteringly hot.

At night they huddled around electric heaters to ward off the cold that seemed to seep out of the ground once the sun went down. Etienne warmed his hands on one when K.D. thrust a tin cup of coffee at him, and sat on a camp stool on the other side of the heater. Etienne nodded politely, sipping the coffee. It burned his tongue.

“What do you make of him?” K.D. broke the silence. “Our employer.”

“Sol?” Etienne looked around, noted none of Sol’s men were nearby. “I’ve heard the name before. High up in one of the Solaris cartels, word is, the familia maybe. Smuggler. People, drugs, weapons.” He swirled the coffee around in its cup, letting it cool. Looked over at K.D. “Talks too much. Terrible fashion sense. Why ask me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” K.D. met his gaze steadily. “Just wondered what MIIO had on him.”

Etienne shook his head. “Thanks for the coffee Kay-dee, but keep your conspiracy theories next time. I’m not MIIO.”

“No? Odds are one of us is. Anyway, call me Kyle. Kyle Darius, but if we’re in this together, call me Kyle,” he gave a minute shrug, so small Etienne wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it. “You do know that if we walk onto that DropShip, we are dead men.” Kyle mimed a pistol to the head. “Once he has those ’Mechs, guy like Sol is just going to see us as loose ends.”

“There’s 12 of us, he’s only got four, five guys,” Etienne pointed out.

“You sure?” Kyle looked over his shoulder at the figures gathered around the other heaters, oases of orange and yellow in the purpling dusk. “He’s got to have someone on the inside of the dig, maybe more than one. The zebra twins are locals, his men for sure. Who knows what deal the yaks have with Sol’s people? May be less of ‘us’ than you think. We’ve got to figure out who we can trust.”

“We?” asked Etienne. “Anyway, bit late for second thoughts. Double-cross Sol and there goes your ride off this planet. Where can you go? Give yourself up to the OA?”

“Maybe your MIIO buddies could pick us up,” Kyle’s smile was friendly, but Etienne remembered the last time he’d seen the man smile like that, just before he’d kicked someone in the head.

“Gonna sound like a scratched datadisk here Kyle, but I don’t have any MIIO buddies.”

“Okay, maybe you don’t have any MIIO buddies.” Kyle stood, patted Etienne once on the shoulder. “Doesn’t change the problem. Who can we trust? Keep your eyes open, ET.”

The next morning, Aaron was missing.

His tent was there, intact, his duffel bag and all his belongings too. Clothes, cooling jacket, deck of plascards, dog-eared copy of _Mercenary Mayhem_ comic book. Combat knife, Mauser and Grey pistol. The sum of a life wasted, Etienne thought sadly, tossing the comic book back into the bag.

After an hour of searching, Harun found the body at the bottom of a cliff not far from the camp, neck broken.

“Idiot,” swore Sol, looking down at the forlorn corpse, already half-buried in sand. “Blundered around in the dark and walked straight off the side.”

Dunn looked down sadly, shaking her head. “He was a good kid. Stupid bad luck,” she glanced up. “Nobody heard anything?”

Kyle glanced at Etienne, one eyebrow raised. Neither said anything.

They dug a shallow hole for the body. There was no eulogy. They’d barely known the kid. Harun threw Aaron’s bag into the back of the second car. “Waste just to leave it here,” he said.

The cars drove off, disappearing into the blinding haze.

Nobody spoke. Etienne silently prayed that nothing else would go wrong.

**_StarLeague Cache (Interstellar Expeditions Dig Site)_ **

**_Char Basin_ **

**_3 November 3038_ **

“Son of a bitch,” Etienne observed, carefully wrapping a white bandage around the laser burn on his bicep. “Let me worry about security, he said. Son. Of. A. _Bitch_.”

The Interstellar Expeditions dig had uncovered a StarLeague cache built into a hillside. The inside of the cache was like a cathedral, a single long, high-vaulted chamber carved into mountain rock. Side tunnels lead to empty armories, forgotten barracks and meeting rooms. Half a dozen 20-meter high alcoves were regularly spaced along each wall of the main hall, garlanded with metal gantries and stairways. In each alcove, harshly lit from below by portable spotlights, stood a bone-white BattleMech. _Phoenix Hawks, Shadow Hawks,_ and another design he didn’t recognize with a wide-set stance and vaguely samurai-helmet shaped head.

In the air, the burnt charcoal odor of gunpowder, the ozone tang of laser fire and the metallic smell of blood.

Neatly lined up across the floor were the bodies of Guangli, Usha, Black, one of the _yakuza_ and two of the black-shirts. Outside, he knew, was a pit with the bodies of the Interstellar Expedition team and their guards. He hadn’t seen who’d started shooting first. One of Sol’s men, most likely.

“ _Son_ of a bitch,” it was almost like a mantra now. “Son,” he tightened the bandage once, “of a” patted it, satisfied, “bitch.” Looked back at the line of bodies. “Easiest money you’ve ever made, he said.”

Yelling. Someone was yelling outside. He knew the feeling. He stood and headed for the exit, leaving two black-shirts with the bodies. Even thugs had to mourn sometimes, he supposed.

He passed between the gargantuan gates, out into the wreckage of the Interstellar Expeditions camp. Collapsed tents, one still smoldering from where it had been scorched by a laser. The burned-out shell of a jeep, next to the parked Mambas. A strong, cool breeze was blowing, smearing the black greasy smoke across the sky. The horizon was blurry, the sky dark with the promise of a storm.

Phoebe Dunn had her pistol out. That wasn’t a good sign, probably. Sol faced her, hands up, palms out, placating, tense but not angry yet, one of his bodyguards at his side. The bodyguard fingered a submachine gun. That was quite definitely a bad sign. The gun was a brutal, ugly thing, locally made, a mass of scrap metal tubes, wires and springs crudely welded together.

The surviving MechWarriors stood around them in a loose circle—Kyle, Harun, Maja, White. The other _yakuza_. Damn, he’d never learned his name. A-something. Akira?

“You got half of us killed,” Dunn was shouting. “You got Usha killed. You got Aaron killed. You nearly got _me_ killed. You and your amateur, trigger-happy, maniac thugs nearly got _all_ of us killed.”

“Think about the ’Mechs. One of them is your ’Mech, if you stay,” Sol said, low and reasonable.

“Stuff the bloody ’Mech. You think I’m getting into a DropShip with _you_? You think I _trust_ you? You think I’m _stupid_? You think I’m _crazy_?”

Sol was shaking his head. “I know you’re upset—”

“Too bloody right I am!”

“—but you can’t just—”

“Try and stop me!” Dunn interrupted, backing slowly towards the Mamba, pistol still pointed at Sol and his bodyguard. Fumbled behind her for the door latch, never taking her eyes off them.

“She’ll warn the OA,” muttered White. Dunn had finally gotten the door open.

Sol shrugged, though his jaw was clenched. “No comm set in the car,” he growled. “I’ve got the only satphone. Even if nothing happens to her, it’ll take days for her to get back, days for anyone to come here. We’ll be long gone by then. I’ll deal with Miss Dunn later.” Dunn clambered into the driver’s seat, slammed the door close. Gunned the engine.

The car had just started rolling when it blew apart.

The chassis was blown into the air in a fountain of smoke and dust. One of the front wheels came spinning out of the cloud, followed by a rain of debris and shrapnel. The shockwave buffeted them like a gale, knocking them down.

Kyle was up first, sprinting towards the billowing dust cloud until the wrecked car’s fuel tank ignited, flaring up like a blowtorch, enveloping the hulk of the Mamba. Kyle crouched and held his arms over his head as flaming shards landed around him.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” screamed Sol. “What the hell happened?”

White shook his head. “Land mine?”

Realization hit Etienne worse than the shockwave. “Anti-tank grenade,” he said. “Aaron had one. In his bag.”

Sol threw his hat down in the sand and stamped on it. “Of all the stupid goddam—” He spoke at length and at high volume about Aaron’s—and indeed all the other MechWarriors’—parentage, genetic makeup, sexual inclinations and what they could do with all three.

“Harun was the last one to touch it,” Maja said quietly, cutting through Sol’s tirade.

Harun’s head jerked around. “Are you? Did you just? Why would I?” he was shaking, hand on a heavy pistol in his hip holster. “You got something to say, say it.”

“Think I just did,” Maja turned to face him, hand on her own pistol. “I said: ‘Harun was the last one to touch Aaron’s bag.’ That clear enough for you, Snake?”

Etienne stepped between them, arms raised, placating. “He’s got a point, Maja. Why would he?” In the background, Sol’s cursing seemed to be reaching a crescendo.

“Shut it, FedRat,” Harun snarled. “You were looking at the bag before I went anywhere near it. Maybe you’re the one we should be asking questions.”

“Awful quick to throw the blame on others,” Maja shot back. “Seems pretty suspicious to me.”

Etienne tried to keep himself in the center of the group, blocking the others from looking right at one another. He kept his hands up and out. “Look Harun, think. Think. Why would I point out the grenade was in the car if I set it off?”

“One of you is a traitor,” Sol shouted. “I should just kill the whole bloody lot of you.” He pulled a gyrojet pistol out of his jacket. The bodyguard cocked his submachine gun.

There was a string of metallic sliding sounds as Maja, Harun and Akira all whipped out pistols. White had also drawn an autopistol, but his was pointed at Maja, not Sol, Etienne noted without much surprise.

“Put those away,” Sol yelled, indignant.

“You first,” Maja’s Nakjama, gripped in both hands, didn’t budge.

Etienne found himself in a ring of muzzles. Sol, the bodyguard and White on one side, Maja, Harun and Akira on the other. “Calm down,” he pleaded. “Everyone just calm down.”

“Shut up, ET,” shouted Harun. “Get out of the way or I shoot you first.”

“Put them down right now,” Sol was still screaming, oblivious.

Maja was screaming back, equally deaf to conversation. “Get down, face down in the sand, or I swear—”

Nobody noticed Kyle return until he pressed the muzzle of his needler against the back of the Sol’s head. “I’d do what she says.”

Startled by his voice, the bodyguard pivoted, pointing his submachine gun at Kyle. Then rethought, swung it back to Harun.

“You are a dead man. Dead.” Sol snarled.

The wind picked up. Dust swirled.

“Threatening me is not a plan for longevity, Sol old buddy,” Kyle said tightly.

“Guys, look guys,” interrupted Harun, pointing at the horizon with his free hand. “Guys, the sky.”

“Not really a good time for parlor tricks Harun,” said Kyle.

“Guys, the sky is moving,” Harun took a step back.

“It’s what?” Etienne took his eyes off Sol, risked a glance in the direction Harun was pointing. His eyes widened.

It was coming like an upside-down wave, a brown and grey tsunami of sand and dust a dozen kilometers high and over a hundred wide. Roiling, seething, eating up the ground with insatiable appetite. How far away he wasn’t sure, three kilometers, maybe four, but getting closer with alarming rapidity.

“Harun’s right,” Etienne said. “Dust storm. Now might be a good time for everyone to cool down, like all the way down, and put away your guns.”

Sand swirled and eddied around their legs. The breeze seemed to find new strength with each gust. Sol’s hat went cartwheeling away.

Sol also looked, broke into a wolfish smile. “Haboob,” he said. “Big one. Only shelter is the cache, and my men are inside. You put your guns down, I might let you inside before it hits.”

“Or maybe we just shoot your ass if you don’t,” snarled Maja.

The wind was stronger now, the air taking on a thick yellowish haze as the wind kicked up more sand and dust. Just at the edge of hearing came the avalanche rumble of the storm.

“No Sol, no ’Mechs gents,” Sol looked pointedly at Akira and Harun. “Tell you what, one of you shoot her and I’ll even let you keep your gun.” He laughed as the two men exchanged uncertain glances. “The Haboob moves quickly gents, ‘bout a hundred klicks an hour. I reckon you’ve got less than a minute to make up your minds. Otherwise, well. Best hope it doesn’t take your skin off before it buries you alive.”

A strong blast of wind buffeted them. Kyle staggered, lost his balance.

Sol twisted, ramming his elbow into Kyle’s stomach. Kyle dropped to the sand, his needler going wide, spraying ceramic needles into the air with a metallic hiss. The bodyguard flinched as a needle grazed his arm, making him squeeze the trigger—

“No, wait!” Etienne cried.

—firing a burst into Harun’s chest. Harun convulsed, pistol firing wildly as he fell backwards. Etienne threw himself down in the sand. Maja’s laser whined overhead, joining the sharp crack of Sol’s gyrojet. The wind began to howl in fury, throwing blinding sand into his eyes, reducing the others to billowing shadows illuminated by sparkles of gunfire. Someone was screaming. Possibly the bodyguard. Etienne rolled and rolled, unsure where anyone was, unsure of anything but the need to keep moving.

Someone was still shooting, and he wondered how anyone could see well enough to hit anything. Or maybe that was it: someone panicking, spraying the area with gunfire. Then, silence.

A figure appeared out of the gloom, towering over him. Etienne fumbled for his pistol, until he saw it was Kyle. Then wondered if Kyle was better than any of the other possibilities. Kyle had the bodyguard’s submachine gun, a scarf around his face, which he lowered as he crouched by Etienne, shouting next to his ear. “Sol … cover … inside …”

He put a hand under Etienne’s armpit and helped him to hit feet. Etienne removed the hand, shouted “I’m okay.” He doubted Kyle could hear over the wind. He held up a hand, thumb and index finger making a circle. Kyle nodded. Together, they stagger-walked towards what Etienne hoped was the cache gates.

The two surviving black-shirts were trying to drag the protesting gates closed as sheets of flying sand swirled and eddied about them. They never heard the two MechWarriors approach. Kyle calmly leveled the submachine gun, fired a burst. The first back-shirt was thrown against the gate, then slid bonelessly down, trailing thick smears of blood as he sank. The second turned, fumbling for the gun slung across his back. Kyle’s burst took him in the chest, pitching him backwards into the darkness of the cache.

Inside, Etienne found he could hear again. Kyle removed his mask, coughed, spat.

“The others?” Etienne asked. “Maja? White? The yak, Akira?”

Kyle shook his head. “I think Sol’s the only one who got away.”

“He’s in here?”

“Somewhere. Listen.” They heard the faint ring of boots on metal. Kyle turned to Etienne. “The ’Mechs.”

“He’s not a MechWarrior. Is he?”

“Don’t plan on waiting to find out. You take that one,” Kyle pointed up at the nearest ’Mech, a _Phoenix Hawk_ , then at its twin on the opposite side. “I’ll take this one. Go!”

Etienne sprinted up the metal staircase, taking the steps three at a time. He heard the deep thrum of a fusion reactor stirring to life. Panting, breathless, he threw himself into the cockpit, scrabbling for the neurohelmet. As he punched the hot start control, the vertigo hit him like a kick to the head, making the world spin. He fought down the urge to vomit. He grabbed the yokes and tried to will the machine forward.

The _Phoenix Hawk_ broke free of its scaffolding with a tortured scream. It staggered sideways, then fell to one knee. Etienne closed his eyes, shook his head, trying to fight off the vertigo. Down the hall, he could see Sol’s ’Mech—a _Shadow Hawk_ —had already broken free and was staggering towards him.

“Out the way,” Sol’s voice boomed over the external speakers, echoing in the narrow chamber.

“So you can bring your team to finish us off?” Etienne replied, trying to lever the right arm up. The crosshairs centered on the _Shadow Hawk’s_ chest. He squeezed the primary trigger. Ancient, disused circuits flickered, then failed. A blinking red light appeared on his HUD.

“I’m not your enemy, Mister Dubois,” Sol said. His ’Mech lurched another step. “I don’t want to kill you.”

“No? Awful lot of dead people just the same.” Etienne tried the secondary triggers. The machine guns whirled, ammo bins empty. The right arm medium laser spat green fire, which stuttered and cut out a microsecond later, leaving only a faintly glowing patch on the side of the _Shadow Hawk’s_ head.

Screaming incoherently, Sol charged forward. With uncalibrated helmets and balky controls, the two machines crashed together like a drunken barroom brawl, swaying together to trade wildly-aimed blows before reeling back again. Etienne aimed a left hook at the head of the other ’Mech, only for the fist to sail overhead as Sol staggered and fell. His punch slammed into the ferrocrete wall. He tried a kick but the _Phoenix Hawk_ overbalanced, reeled over backwards and went crashing to the floor with a teeth-jarring shake.

Sol was up first, using his greater mass to swat aside Etienne’s attempts to block his blows and crashing a punch into the side of the _Phoenix Hawk’s_ head. Etienne was thrown sideways against his restraints and felt one of the neurohelmet’s receptors tear loose. A gyro warning light flashed on the HUD and the Mech fell to its knees again.

“Kyle!” Etienne shouted.

“Actuators are locked, can’t move,” Kyle called back.

Sol pulled the _Shadow Hawk’s_ hand back for a _coup de grace_. Etienne threw the _Phoenix Hawk_ forward, lashing out wildly, desperate to keep Sol off-balance. He felt the left hand catch, saw it was hooked on the aerial on the back of the _Shadow Hawk’s_ head. Etienne jerked the head sideways, smashing it into the cavern wall. Sol roared in pain.

The _Shadow Hawk_ swung wildly, trying to break Etienne’s hold. Etienne pulled the head back and smashed it against the wall again. Again. _Again_. The _Shadow Hawk’s_ arms dropped, the legs buckled. Again. The head’s armor plates crumpled and splintered, coated inside with thick red paste. Again.

“Son of a bitch.” Etienne breathed. He let go the yokes, letting the adrenaline ebb, leaving him weak, shaky as a newborn.

Something punched through the back of the _Phoenix Hawk_ , sending it crashing face-first to the ground.

“ _Kochira wa_ _Chu-i Kurohara_ ,” he heard Kyle say. “ _Teikobutai o shori shite, kichi o kakuho dekita._ ”

Etienne looked at the 360-degree vision strip. Saw the other _Phoenix Hawk_ standing over him, the maw of the right-arm laser pointed directly at his cockpit.

“Kyle?”

“That’s not the name my mother gave me, no.”

“You’re not Capellan.” he realized.

Kyle snorted. “I don’t even like Chinese food.”

“You planned all this?”

A short laugh. “Hardly. My mission was to find the cache, then delay you. The rest you did yourselves.”

“Why?”

“Poor ET, really as innocent as you claimed. Well, maybe you weren’t MIIO, but the ISF doesn’t take chances,” Kyle sounded almost apologetic. “There’s a war coming, ET. The Dragon needs every ’Mech it can find. Sorry you got caught in this little comedy of errors. _Sayonara_.”

Etienne twisted the ’Mech’s torso, bringing the right arm up.

It was a brave effort and almost worked.


End file.
